I am now going to enter a drug rehab program(it's about time!)and I am trying to ween myself off of Lyrica. How can I do this safely? I am SCARED I might have a seizure or possibly some really bad withdrawl symptoms if I just stop taking them suddenly. Does anybody know how or just the best advise they can give would be helpful!- I don't want to do this anymore.
I am an addict and I found that Lyrica at higher dosing has similar effect on me as pain killers?
Question posted by New Hope on 20 Aug 2011
Last updated on 24 August 2018
3 Answers
kittycat777
12 Oct 2017
I'll pray for you. Km messing with lyrics. Took probably fifteen hundred milligrams today to get high. I'm not feeling any pain relief... Just raising heartbeat and dizzy. Now I'm out of them so now I wonder if k will go thru withdrawal tomorrow. Now I'm scared. Plus I took eight tramadol this morning and thirty-six hundred hundred mg of ganapantin. Mist have a high tolerance
Izzy73
24 Aug 2018
Kitty im surprised you didn't OD. I hope ur all better now.
Inactive
20 Aug 2011
If you are in chrontic pain I wish you luck getting off the Lyrica. I was on it since the FDA approved it for fibromyalgia, & it really helped my pain. Something went wrong with my insurance , & they refused to keep paying for it so I had to stop taking it. What a mistake that was for my pain issues. At first it didn't seem to me to make a difference, but it has after about 8 weeks. Anyway to your problem, when I had to stop taking it, I was on 75mg. 2 at bedtime, & 1 in the A.M. The doctor had me drop 1 pill at bedtime for 1 week, then 1 in the morning for 1 week, & finally stopped completely. No seizures or anything other than the return of pain. Have never heard of a siezure med being addictive either. Would like to know who told you this information...
Kathi808
20 Aug 2011
I weaned myself off of Lyrica very slowly... no matter what dose your taking you should slowly remove a small amount of the medication dosage you are used to. If you cut the dose (a little at a time) and remain on the 'new' lower dose for at 10-14 days... after 10-14 days cut a little more off of the dose and remain there for the same 10-14 days. When you get down to the lowest you can take... start skipping days between taking the small doses...
I would do this until there are no more pills left... tiny doses several days apart and finally no Lyrica at all.
I did it and had no seizure or problems.
DO NOT STOP LYRICA SUDDENLY... my friend did that and ended up having seizures and getting hurt. Take it slow... you will be fine.
Aloha
New Hope
20 Aug 2011
Thank you for your comment/advise on this matter. My only problem is I only have 56 pills remaining and was taking 14-20 pills every day for about 2months now. I can go about 30-33 hours without taking any Lyrica and start getting bad headaches, insomina and really bad anxiety(which I suffer from already)I have gotten down to about 8 pills a day about a month ago, and back up to double that amount I go. Any suggestions? and thanks once again for the advise and kind words-it means allot to me! I have a 13yr old who needs a better mom then this and this is the first time to enter rehab and to reach out to anyone about any of this! Thank you once again.
Kathi808
20 Aug 2011
Aloha New Hope... I'm with you on this. You said you can go 33 hours before you get a headache etc. What I am suggested is that instead of taking nothing for 30 hours.. take some of the medication (much less)
on a every other hour basis. This will prevent you from having the symptoms of withdrawal. Is your Dr. on board with you stopping? Will he give you enough to wean off slowly?? How did you end up with so much Lyrica? Did the Dr. prescribe that much. OR you get it elsewhere.
Let's keep working together on this.
Aloha oe
Kathi808
New Hope
21 Aug 2011
Hey there, thanks again for your advise. How many pills do you think every other hour I should take? I took 14 lyrica at 3:30pm on Saturday. No dr. on board with this. I would rather not say how I got so may lyrica, but I am not getting anymore that is for sure! I am just waiting for them to call me and let me know what day I am checking in to rehab, so I want to do this and be done with the pill popping cycle I have put myself thru off and on for years now. I am a very bright and smart individual who has worked in the medical field as a Cardiovascular Technician(which is how I got started on pain pills) I want to finally get the "Mental" help I need! so that I can focus on taking care of my 13yr old, who desperately needs his mother back. Any help or just your warm comments are greatly appreciated! Thanks a million!
Kathi808
23 Aug 2011
Aloha again... how about dividing the pills into equal doses and really get serious about taking a few, every 6 hours or so. No doubt you are going to 'feel' the decrease. Perhaps by spreading them out you can avoid the worst symptoms. When you go into re-hab they won't give you anything, if it's like our Aloha House re-hab. Some places actually give you something to help w/ withdrawals. How many milligrams are the Lyrica you have? Can you get any Doc friends to help you out??? Drink plenty of Chamomile Tea, it will help calm you down. I would also consider going to a Chinese Herb store and ask them for something to help. We have the Dragons' den on Maui... they are very helpful and have all types of herbs to help.
Good Luck. Keep faith in yourself.
zorro5000
26 Aug 2011
Years ago I was taking neurontin 800 x 3/day. Experiencing withdrawal from high doses before I took care not to exceed that dose. However in between doses I would feel a lot of anxiety. I didn't like the up and down garbage, so I decided to get off, I say over a 2 month period, back then I don't remember it being that hard at all.
Today I am on lyrica but I am also 23 days clean off a 1 and half stint with methadone, I'm pretty much over that, thank God but now I'm on a high dose of Lyrica, because it helped with the anxiety, but because of the rapid tolerance build up I've noticed with this drug what worked one day didn't work the next. So I don't know I've averaging about 1500mg of Lyrica /day. I have enough to tapper for a week and half probably. I really hate this stuff and regret getting back on it.
I've come off of Lyrica cold on several occasions, and it was ruff, even when taking extra methadone, the first and second night I saw little sleep and what few hours I got I had vivid dreams that weren't all that nice. One thing I've noticed is at about the 72 hour mark things start to subside, you can sleep at night, but symptoms do linger for a week or more, but I was glad to get past the 72 hour mark.
There is one methode that works best and that is going turkey, but substituting a benzodiazapine. You don't even realize your withdrawing from Lyrica/Neurontin, but at most you wouldn't wan't to take the benzo's for more than 5 days and not some crazy amount that would cause benzo withdral after that.
I don't know If I'll have that advantage this time so I'm gonna go as slow as I can, its gonna suck, after that I will never touch these fowl drugs again. I don't have Fibro, but I was precribed them for anxiety and bi-polar disorder, which was a missdiagnosis anyway. The one good that about them is the duration it takes one to get fully normal after withdrawal is a lot shorter for Lyrica/Neurontin (about 1.5 weeks to be 100% again) than withdrawal from long term benzo use, that can take up to 6 months or even more in some people.
Curious470
19 Feb 2018
What if you take the capsules?
Related topics
lyrica, seizures, pain, rehab, drug rehab
Further information
- Lyrica uses and safety info
- Lyrica prescribing info & package insert (for Health Professionals)
- Side effects of Lyrica (detailed)
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